


You Are My Villain, Not His!

by Geneviev



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jealousy, M/M, Nico is a Dork, Secret Identity, Superhero!Percy, Superheroes, Villain!Nico, Villains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:07:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25859431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geneviev/pseuds/Geneviev
Summary: I saw a post on Tumblr where the hero was jealous of another hero because they stole the hero's villain's attention. So, this is not my idea, but I can't find this post anywhere to credit them.OrThe Nicercy superhero-villain fic nobody asked for.Percy is jealous because some blonde hero stole the Ghost King's attention from him. How dare he?!
Relationships: Nico di Angelo/Percy Jackson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 119





	You Are My Villain, Not His!

Percy liked routines. As a hyperactive kid who couldn't stay still for even a minute, the routine was the only thing that helped him function as an adult. Young adult - whatever.

So, he woke up every day at the same time, ate his breakfast during his way to the university, went to his own lessons and the ones he taught. Went home at six o'clock, ate some leftovers from lunch, wrote his papers, and corrected his student's, and finally fall asleep at midnight. It was a nice routine. Not much room for anything else, but it was his and he liked it.

Especially when he could break his strict routine because of the sound of his villain's alarm.

Yes, Percy Jackson liked his calm days, but he needed the adrenaline rush which came with fighting against villains.

When he was younger, he and his friends founded a group, the Half-Bloods, to protect their neighborhood. The people living there were usually without any super powers, thus the prime targets of superpowered criminals. So, as some of the few powered individuals, they felt it was their job to protect them. They were only five, thirteen to sixteen years old kids, but they were the local heroes.

Thalia, the leader of the group was the oldest (only for a few months, but it counted). She could use electricity. Not big bolts of lightning, or something, but could cause small shocks which would stop the criminals. It didn't kill them but it was not for the faint-hearted.

Her right hand was her second-oldest best friend, named Grover (the first one was Luke, who turned into a villain, so they didn't talk about him much), who had an amazing connection to the flora. He could cause small earthquakes with the root of the trees and could use flowers as rope. If he didn't hear every joke about BDSM and tentacles, he heard none.

The third one who joined the group was Annabeth, a super smart girl. No, it wasn't only an expression, her superpower was literally being smart. Book smart. Not people smart - sometimes it caused some friction between her and the others. But they loved each other, so it wasn't that much of a problem.

Percy joined them when Thalia saved him from his first stepfather and his thug of friends. He could control a small amount of water since he could remember, but over time, his powers grew. He could have been an important asset for the mafia, but Thalia and the others saved him from this fate. Gabe and the others went to prison and he became one of the protectors of the neighborhood.

Their last member was Nico. He was the youngest, he had the least control over his powers, yet he was responsible and enthusiastic. He was a little ray of sunshine for the group, they loved him dearly, even if his abilities were tied to the darkness, which was typically considered a villain's thing.

They were good heroes and even better friends but it couldn't be forever. One by one they left the neighborhood and the others behind.

The first one was Annabeth, who was accepted into a university two years earlier than usual.

The second one who left was Thalia, who joined into an all-girl superhero group, led by the majestic Lady Artemis.

The boys stayed together for a year, but then Grover and Percy graduated from high school and were accepted into their dream university (unfortunately it was not the same one), leaving behind their youngest.

When Percy started university, he felt ready to leave behind not only his best friends and his mother, but also his days as a superhero.

He lasted for the first semester.

When he saw a fellow student targeted by a group of four big, burly men, he had to step in. He saved the other student, but he couldn't save himself from the addictive rush of adrenaline. Thus, the Sea Prince was born.

The Sea Prince was a mystery; a superhero who saved the inhabitants of the university, supposedly a resident himself, but nobody could figure out his identity. Neither his fans nor his enemies knew that he was the weirdly punctual, charmingly handsome student-turned-into-teacher assistant man, who unfortunately had no social life other than going to school.

So, Percy Jackson liked routine - and superheroing, which meant that he liked it that fighting with his nemesis was usually predictable.

When he started patrolling as the Sea Prince, he liked that it was new and exciting. But after a few semesters, the novelty lost its charm and became tired of fighting alone, all night against superpowered or regular criminals. When the Ghost King first debuted with raising skeletons from underground and scaring people left and right, he felt resigned.

But then the Ghost King turned out to be an intelligent and funny enemy, who he couldn't stop, and thus their cat and mouse game began. It was fun and exciting and exhilarating.

Then another superhero started taking out criminals, which gave Percy the wished reprieve. The only villain he didn't give up was the Ghost King. That villain has HIS.

Of course, some criminals didn't understand his need to only focus on the Ghost King and tried to cause trouble for him, but it wasn't that much time to have them under control.

The problem was the other hero.

The stupid, unashamed sonuvabitch, who thought it was all right to get between Percy and his Ghost King. The asshole, who stole his nemesis!

Usually, their fight went this:

When the alarm went off to alert the university’s population about an incoming attack, he’d check whether it was the Ghost King or not. If it was the shadow-user, he’d drop everything, he’d break off his painfully constructed routine, and run to “fight” with him. If it was not the King, he’d continue doing whatever he did before and let the blondie hero deal with whoever caused the ruckus. 

He’d fight with his nemesis - which was NOT flirting, despite what the school’s radio... and Tumblr... and the numerous fanfictions about them said -, either win and wait for the police to try apprehending him, or lose, and watch the Ghost King leaving in a dark shadow. Just to make sure, he was leaving, and not because his backside looked amazing in black leather. (Though, it couldn’t be denied - it looked delicious.) 

But now, it went like this:

The first few steps were the same. When the alarm sounded, Percy would only run to fight if it was the Ghost King. But when he would arrive, even if he was close to the place where the King and his skeletons were, the villain was already occupied by the other hero.

That good for nothing Blonde Lightning!

Percy was not amused.

This was his villain (even if the Ghost King was more like an anti-hero than a villain, but semantics)! The other hero, Blonde Lightning, didn't have any rights to steal his attention.

It seemed, even if everybody knew that the Sea Prince had a soft spot for the Ghost King - because he is only sighted when dealing with the shadow-user -, the Ghost King replaced him. He replaced him with a younger, blonder version. Every time Percy arrived at the crime scene, they were already “fighting”. Like the same “fight” as the Ghost King did with Percy. The flirting kind of fighting.

Or not.

They were worse. Why was that much of pressing-each-other-against-the-wall necessary when trying to have an upper hand?!

And why was that the Ghost King seemed to enjoy their interaction more than he did with Percy? He was punning more. He was smiling more! And worse of all - he ignored Percy. He saw he was there, he winked at the blue-tights-wearing Sea Prince, and continued dealing with his new nemesis.

Who did this?! Who replaces their nemesis to a newer model? And who the Hades steals somebody else’s villain?!

And it was not only a one-time thing. They did it repeatedly! So, when Percy arrived late once again to the fight, he pouted, crossed his arms across his chest, and did nothing. If the Ghost King wouldn’t fight with him, why would he bother with it? It wasn’t like they had something going on between them. It was only in the head of their fans.

He turned his back at them and left.

But he couldn’t leave his feelings behind.

He didn’t know much about the Ghost King, but he knew they were good together. They could have been good together. So, he gave one last chance to their relationship - as nemeses, of course! He tried to calculate when and where would the Ghost King strike next, and he realized something.

The shadow-user was only active when Percy had nothing else to do, except eating or correcting the papers. Not when he had classes or when he went home to Sally and Paul and his little sister. Only when he was somewhat free.

The Ghost King knew his identity.

Maybe. Or not, maybe it was just a silly idea. 

Maybe the Ghost King was a student with mostly the same routine as him.

But Percy couldn’t help with the nagging feeling that he didn’t notice something. 

Percy was not somebody who was good with patterns, but even he could figure out something obvious - after a few months. It seemed there were only three places the Ghost King operated: in the garden, in the gym, and in one of the sororities. So, Percy went to all three to see whether he could figure out something else.

And he did.

He did, all right.

It was early morning, so he wasn’t surprised that there were only two people in the gym, but he was surprised about who they were. One of them was one of his students, but the other one… it was Nico di Angelo.

The little boy he adored when they were younger, but since he started uni, he has no contact with. But he could recognize him. He had the same black, fluffy hair, his handsome face, his resting bitch face. The two differences were his clothes, which were all black, and that he was older.

Percy felt conflicted, they had lost contact, but he wanted to rekindle their friendship. He missed all his friends/partners in stopping crimes, but he missed little Nico the most. He walked slowly, unsurely towards the boys, but stopped his track when he heard what they were talking about.

“Do you think he will do something about this? I feel like maybe he is interested in me, but…” said the sad-looking Nico. Percy didn’t want to eavesdrop, but he felt curious - the topic seemed serious.

“But you are his nemesis. You have a not so nice history together, and he has no idea that you are you,” the other boy completed Nico's sentence.. Jason, if Percy remembered correctly. Nemesis? Like… superhero-and-villain nemesis?

Could it be?

“Would he hate me? Would he pity me? Does he even remember me?” Nico seemed depressed, all Percy wanted was hugging him and hiding him from every problem. Instead, he stayed half-hiding, continuing listening.

“I don’t know, but you have the right to be happy. If he hates you, at least you would know it and you could move on. But the income might be positive and you’d live with him your happily ever after. You’d never know.”

“I… yes, you are right. I was the Ghost King for too long, now I don’t even know how to interact with him without our superhero-and-villain persona.”

Percy felt… he felt something, all right, he just couldn’t recognize it. He was happy? Confused? Shocked? Angry? Relieved? Horrified? All the above?

“What…?” Whispered Percy. It was quiet, but both boys turned their heads toward him. “Nico? Are you the Ghost King?” He asked.

Nico paled, but after a few minutes of staring at each other, he nodded and walked towards Percy.

They had a lot of things to talk about.

(Nico fell in love with Percy when he was fourteen, but when Percy left at eighteen to college, he was devastated. He felt alone as the youngest hero, especially when after the others left, he lost his sister. She died because of an accident. Nobody could have saved her, but he was alone and depressed and he blamed the others, so he became a villain.

After he ran away from his home, he was consumed by his pain, and became a villain, who stopped heroes at any cost. He felt that heroes were fake, they made everything worse, not better. But then he met his half-sister (the runaway daughter of Hades Underworld) and her friends. They were good for him, so he joined them to be not a villain-villain, but more like an anti-hero. They were a chaotic good group of teenagers.

When he and the others started university, they disbanded, but they didn't leave each other. Hazel, her boyfriends, Leo and Frank, Jason and his girlfriend, Reyna, all of them went to the same university.

First it wasn't his goal to attract Percy's attention. He didn't even know which university was where Percy left, even less that he was working there. He just wanted to have some fun after his first test, so he summoned his skeletons to prank the students. It wasn't his fault that the local hero was a funny, cheeky little cutie who reminded him of his first love.

He started flirting with him, it was nice to have the blushing hero's attention on him, but then he figured out the identity of his nemesis, his hero. He never wanted anything more than to have all of Percy's focus on him. It was great that the Prince only fought with him, but their relationship didn't progress anywhere. He felt that his flirting didn't work as he wanted, so he asked Jason to help him - to try to make his Sea Prince jealous. His plan worked like a charm, Percy was seething. He just didn’t count on Percy figuring out his identity before he could gather the strength in himself to confess him.

Fortunately, everything turned out all right.

After a long conversation, filled with tears, smiles, accusations, and forgiveness, they decided to take it slow. They wanted to get to know each other better before they jump into a relationship based on mutual attraction and flirty fights.

They became boyfriends two days after. It was slow enough, right?)

**Author's Note:**

> Not my best work, but I really wanted to write it during one of my sleepless nights.


End file.
